I recently planted orange and white zinnias in the garden, and they are among the most visited in the garden for a sip of nectar. I love them for its beauty, and well being a butterfly attractor id an awesome bonus!
The gulf fritillary loves this flower.
My garden has become my favorite place to be again with all of the work that has been done and still underway.
With the lack of rain, and the extreme dry conditions, I have taken to watering the garden almost nightly as I replanted a good amount of plants. The great part is all the repoted/moved plants are thriving.
While watering I spotted a few chunky pokydamas swallowtail caterpillars either resting, or munching away. They are definitely getting closer to the final instar where they will stop eating and make their chrysalis.
I always heard the saying, “plant them and they will come.” Gardening, well butterfly gardening, is truly rewarding and thrilling, as you can invite all kinds of species into your garden and watch their lifecycle unfold before your eyes.
The most frequent visitor of the garden are the sulphur butterflies. It’s truly stunning to see so many bright yellow butterflies fluttering about the garden all at once.
Here’s an orange-barred sulphur on a stunning zinnia.
After visiting other gardens an idea struck, and the the wheels started turning.
I love going to other gardens and seeing the name of the plant, especially when I have no idea what it is. I figured it would be beneficial in ny garden because of course I’ve had that “oh crap” moment where I forgot a name of a plant just added to the garden.
So, I did some researching and found name plate garden stakes and jumped onto my cricut and started designing. I made two tonight and love how they turned out. Of course with any project I do, there will definitely be some tweaking on the design to further perfect the outcome.
Just another step in the continued reimagining of my butterfly garden oasis.
I’m really excited about the two pathways that are going through the butterfly garden.
The brick pathway is through the first portion of the garden, which is complete. My daughter painted them years ago, but the paint has since come off, or fading a ton. I may have to scrub them clean, so she can create new designs on them again.
The stone pathway I began today to go through the second portion of the garden.
This pathway, although is very time consuming, I’m loving how it is turning out. My husband brought bricks home years ago and I never knew quite what to do with them. I started getting rid of them, a little every week, until an idea sprung.
I am now using a sledge hammer and breaking them to create another artsy pathway. It’s a huge jigsaw puzzle putting all the broken pieces together.
The best part of today, of course was watching the variety of butterflies that visited the garden while I was out there. We had monarchs, gulf fritillaries, orange barred sulphurs, great southern whites, dainty sulphurs, Cassius blue, polydamas swallowtail and one I got extremely excited about, the giant swallowtail. I sure have created an oasis!